Wednesday, January 11, 2006 |
Pickoff Moves
Erstad Back In Center, No More Offense For Halos
The Angels are going to move Darin Erstad back to center field according to the Times, which also reports the club won't be pursuing any more offensive players."It's not the glitzy thing that makes headlines, but giving opportunities to younger players — and we have some guys who are not far away — is the better way to go for the long-term health of the organization."As for Erstad, he plans on doing things the same way he's always done them: all out.
"I'm confident I'll be able to stay healthy, but as far as running into things, time will tell," Erstad said. "Hopefully you're a little wiser picking your spots, but I don't know, maybe not. Who knows?"Erstad then chuckled at the absurdity of what, for him, is a foreign thought — playing defense timidly.
"Who am I kidding?" he said. "I'm going to play to win and do whatever it takes."
Spring Training Ticket Price Hikes
The Angels are boosting the price of the first four rows of seats between the dugouts at Tempe Diablo Stadium, the so-called "Homeplate MVP" tier. These renovated seats will now set you back $22 each."I think people will be pleasantly surprised," [Stadium Manager Wil] Gorman said. "It will be much more fan friendly. There's going to be a wow factor."If they're better than the oven racks that used to be out there, I'll pony up. Tickets go on sale Saturday through Ticketmaster.
Athletics Nation Offseason Interview With Billy Beane
Right here:Blez: What about some of the young kids that you drafted this past year and are now going through the system? Kids like Italiano, what has their first experience of pro ball been like? Did you like what you saw from them?So much for that Moneyball, draft-college-pitchers-only theory...Beane: Actually we took a bit of a different approach to the draft this past year. We stayed similar to sort of our past draft patterns by getting Pennington and Buck, both high-profile college kids. They both went out and got out of the box great. But then we also went out and felt the need to augment our pitching. We have some good young pitching here, but injuries will tell you, along with the defections that have happened here, that you can never have enough of it. We just felt like there was a lot of value in the high school pitcher and that's why we drafted so many after that round. As far as their experience and our evaluation of that draft, I think we were very excited about the kids we got. As far as raw ability, this is as good a group of power arms as we've had in a long, long time. We've had a tendency of drafting the very polished college pitcher and we've had success doing that, we just didn't feel like those guys were out there when we were drafting this year. At the end of the day, going to instruction league, the group of arms we had were the best in years.
Padres Sign Estes
The Padres signed Shawn Estes to a one-year deal, with Rotoworld setting the dollar figure at $1M.
isn't it still true that college players are easier to project? it might be true now that the greater demand for them has made the riskier HS players more of a value, but that doesn't change what the book said, does it?
Kotchman or McPherson may provide some punch, but this appears to doom the Angels to another season of inconsistent offense.
Unless Kotchman or McPherson comes through, the Angels could very well have only one regular with an OPS over 800 next season. Ouch.
: 1/11/2006 09:46:00 AM : 1/11/2006 12:44:00 PMSpeaking of Erstad, has anybody ever figured out why some players (like him or Adrian Beltre) have a single monumental year and are mediocre ever after? It's been happening for quite some time, so isn't steroid/drug related...
: 1/11/2006 03:29:00 PM : 1/11/2006 06:10:00 PMNewer› ‹Older
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